🔥 Why I Paid $10K for Coaching (After 8 Businesses Hit 7–8 Figures) 🔥

So today in this video, I want to talk about a recent life change that I have made and is personally something that I feel like needs to be said more because it's not talked about enough, and that's staying in the trenches to be successful. So recently in one of the agencies that I'm partnered in, we just ended up joining a $10,000 coaching and mentorship program. Where they're actually implementing a few different things into our agency, but really from scratch, taking everything that we have, making sure that it's kind of honed in and something that we can then go and scale. And you would think, Jake, you've done this 8 different times. You've taken 8 different agencies to 7 and 8-figure run rates. You know, what's going on with this agency? Why are you having this trouble? And it's, it's something I wanna be very transparent with everybody in terms of my successes and different struggles that I do have. Because it's not all sunshines and rainbows. I obviously talk about the 8 that are doing really well, but there are other partnerships that unfortunately I'm only one individual. And with this specific case study and this specific case with this agency, it's something that I haven't been able to give a lot of time to. And you know, with that being said, it's something that has suffered. So I'll break down the backstory of this agency, why we're at where we are. And why we actually just ended up paying $10,000 for this mentorship. Because to be completely honest with you, this mentorship program is meant for people that are absolutely brand new. And it really did humble me a little bit getting into this specific program. Really, number one, realizing like, damn, like this is all shit that we should have been doing, number one. And then number two is the way that they're doing things is actually very cool. There's a lot that we're learning. that we're absolutely going to be able to teach everybody. And it— I, I kind of felt like an old head for a little bit. Again, I've been doing this for 10 years and I really felt like, damn, there's better ways to do things than we currently are. But as far as a backstory goes, this was one of the first JV partnerships that I specifically made. It's something that I don't have my team on. It's me and this other individual. And unfortunately, uh, I, I say unfortunately, I'm blessed to be partnered with this individual, but That specific partnership and this individual, it's been very hard for me to position myself as an authority. Again, I don't really ever like say like, yo, take care of this, take care of that, because it really was built on like just starting out. Again, this was when we were having a little bit of success and it was a partnership that I made more on a 50/50 level. So I don't have that authority and I don't have that kind of like, hey, This is what you should be doing attitude in that relationship because I respect the individual and I see him as an equal. And there's stuff that's specifically on my plate in the agency and there's stuff on his plate. And again, it, it's just, it, it was not started off— that specific partnership was not founded on me being the expert and him being somebody that I can tell and advise because it's been more of a collaboration. And It's led us really down the path of not having a lot of success. Now, to give you some revenue numbers, the agency does anywhere from $40,000 to $50,000 a month. And for us and my expectations, like it should absolutely be doing about $100,000 to $200,000 a month. And unfortunately, again, you know, there's just been some mistakes that have been made. We've changed up our offer. We don't really have the best systems and it really comes down to You know, the foundations of this JV partnership being one of my first ones. And, you know, again, the relationship being a little bit too personal. It's somebody that I had a little bit too much of a personal relationship with. I don't view myself as the authority where I can just be like, hey, go do this, go do this, go do this. I'm not really a coach. I'm an equal. And it's very hard for me to say like, hey, we need to do things this way when I really am valuing the input of that other individual. And They're also just as skilled as I am. And it, again, it's just been this weird dynamic. So things are not always great. You know, again, we, we talk about the wins here, but you know, this is one of those that has really kind of been a side project that hasn't made a lot of progress over the last few years because, you know, again, it's just a weird dynamic and unfortunately, you know, hasn't really grown that much. So, you know, long story short, we realized like, hey, we need to bring somebody in that can help build out the backend. And be that individual that gives us a little bit more of an external view, somebody that can basically come in and say like, hey, this is what our thoughts are. You guys should do this. Because unfortunately, I can't be that individual in the relationship because of how it's set up and how the dynamic is. And we've flip-flopped offers. We've tried a lot of different stuff. So we ended up hiring this mentor. To come in and we got on our first onboarding call and I was like, damn, like this is stuff I know, this is stuff I teach, this is stuff we do on a day-to-day basis. But sometimes it's one of those things where you need to hire somebody externally to really tell you like, hey, stick with this, do this, go and build. And, you know, I kind of relate this back to bodybuilding where, you know, you have individuals that are these big bodybuilders, but they all have coaches. They all have somebody externally. telling them, hey, you need to do this, you need to do that. And when you're in business, you can get in the same mindset where, you know, those bodybuilders, they know everything about nutrition. They don't need a coach. They could self-coach themselves. They know just as much as that coach. But a lot of times you need somebody externally looking from the outside in to be able to help you make very logical and very analytical-based decisions. And not emotional ones. And specifically with this agency, that was definitely something we've struggled with is finding the right offer. Again, I literally wrote a book called The Offer Code, but it's still something we struggled with because of the relationship inside the business with that individual. And then also, you know, having a lot of emotion inside of the business really kind of tainted the view. And to be honest too, again, you know, we both have a lot of stuff going on and it's something that we just haven't really focused a lot of our time on. So we hired this coach to dial us in because there's a lot of potential in this agency. So again, we hired this coach, we're getting into the program, and the first thing that they're walking us through is the offer. And it's super funny, the actual conversation of starting that offer. And it's very interesting actually going through the conversation of like, you know, what offer you guys should do because we, we know what we're doing. We're not stupid. Both of us have been around the block. We've both been doing this for over probably 5 years. On his side, again, I've been doing this for almost ten years, and sometimes you just need to have somebody externally asking the right questions. It's almost a little bit like therapy, where you're able to be like, okay, like that that makes sense. Like that offer we had, like fucking stick with that because that was a winning offer, and that was something that we needed to absolutely do. And when I am talking to students or we're talking to our different JV partnerships, it's something that. We can very clearly see like, hey, this is what you absolutely need to do. This is what works. Go off, run. And 99% of the time we're absolutely right. But for us, because we're just so in it and it's, again, it's just this weird relationship, this weird dynamic, it was very hard. And just again, from this initial onboarding call with this mentor, we're already starting to scale because of that just external view and that external input and them being able to ask the right questions and us being able to really confirm that like, hey, you know, what we have is good. Like let's stick to it and let's run with it. And the second part to hiring this mentorship and this coach is that they are also going to help us build out our systems. Now I'm the systems guy. That's what I started off doing. That's what I'm very good at. That's what I have a passion for. And my partner actually is one of our ops managers in another agency. So he fucking lives and breathes this shit too. But again, when you're in it and when you're not really dedicated 100% to something, it can be very hard to actually sit down and be like, okay, like this is what we need to do and this is how we need to do things. So part of this mentorship is they're actually gonna build out our systems and automations. And again, one of the biggest things I talked about being in the trenches in the start of this video and really seeing that like there's better ways of doing things, it really opened my eye and it really humbled me that like, damn, there's better softwares out there than we're currently using. And sometimes it's hard when you like know that a certain way of doing things works, it's very hard to then, you know, go out and be like, well, let's implement and completely overhaul what we have because there's a better way of doing something. It's very hard to do when you have something that's worked for so long. And that was something that with this mentorship, I don't want to get into, you know, who it is and everything, but they're basically using this new way of doing things. It's called Notion. It's a way, it's kind of like a Monday board on steroids, and it's a new way of actually doing client fulfillment and client management. And our old way of doing things is literally piecing together Monday, Jotform, Freshdesk, all of these different tools. And we basically would piece them together with Zapier or different automations. And together we had this automated, amazing system. Now we've been doing that forever. And when we got into this and I started seeing like, oh shit, like you guys are going to set this up, the client gets, you know, a facing portal and a facing kind of client hub for them. And then we have our backend and we can communicate through it. It's just like, damn, like it's humbling. I've been doing this for 10 years and I feel like a fucking boomer getting into this program and being like, okay, like this is how the new guys are doing it. Like this is how we need to be operating. And I really had like a little bit of imposter syndrome. And it's something that, you know, I struggle with a lot that I have all these awards, all these successes. And at the end of the day, I just, you know, I don't really feel like that. I don't, I don't have this ego. So for me, I can get stuck in being like, like, damn, like I was on this call feeling like a noob. Like, I feel like I'm just starting this agency. And it was the craziest feeling and the absolute— Craziest experience just going through that call and being like, damn, I'm kind of being treated like just an absolute newbie because I you know I didn't join with my camera on. I didn't want to be that guy and try to like be like, oh, I know more than you because to be honest though, the mentor like I've I've had more success. I I do more revenue than them, but I really wanted to go through the process as a beginner, and it just showed me that. There are so much better ways of doing things out there. And over the last 2 weeks, I have absolutely been like, damn, I need to get back in the trenches. So I built out some sick shit for Sutherland University. I built out this whole credit system and I, I kind of like patted myself on the back. I was like, damn, I have it. Like, you know, I, you know, I'm that, I'm that guy. Like, you know, I still got it. I can still build cool shit. And, you know, I kind of got lost in the sauce for a little bit being this, business owner, agency owner with all these partnerships and all these agencies. And it reminded me, and it's something that I have literally a sticky note on my desk that I will never forget. It's something that is one of the key lessons that I, I've known this, like this isn't something new that, but it's something that, again, recently that I've really just had to keep top of mind and that I know that I need to keep top of mind, that is staying in the trenches. Because with just the way that things are going with AI and everything in the marketplace, there are new tools every single day. I made it a point to go fuck with Operator from ChatGPT because like I know that that is absolutely going to be the next way of doing things. And if I'm not using that, if I'm not in the trenches, I am absolutely going to get lost behind. So I just wanted to share that story a little bit with you guys about how Again, you know, I'm human. You know, again, not every partnership, not every company that I start, even to this day, is just absolutely successful. That not every business and not every company that we start is just absolutely successful. And sometimes it's okay to ask for help. And even if that person you're hiring, you know, a little bit below your level, they can still bring a lot of value to the table and they can still educate you on like, hey, this is like the best way of doing things. And sometimes you just need that third party and you need that little therapy session about your offer, about the way that you're doing things to really help you be like, okay, like damn, like, you know, that was right. We needed to be doing it that way. And they're gonna introduce you to new ways of doing things, which again, you know, with this Notion system and being able to put in this just whole operating system of how we can manage our business, again, it's absolutely taking us to the next level. And, and again, for me it was a reminder like, Dude, you were born in the trenches. You're fucking raised in the trenches. You need to stay in the fucking trenches because that's how you're going to win going forward. So I just wanted to make this little video explaining, you know, why we ended up investing in this coaching and mentorship program and how it again has really reminded me that you need a coach and you need somebody from a third party looking in to be able to help you grow. And it is something that I'm absolutely going to dedicate a lot of my time towards because Again, we preach one-on-one coaching. We preach one-on-one mentorship in Setterlun University and having somebody that can help you go from where you are to where you want to get to. And again, we teach all these lessons and sometimes you just need to take a little bit of your own medicine and you need to realize that just as much as you're helping other individuals succeed, you need somebody that can do the same for you. So thanks everybody for listening. I hope you got something out of this. This story. Again, lots of lessons here, but at the end of the day, keep learning, keep striving forward. And again, if you want to learn everything that we know, we pull back the curtain on absolutely everything on how we've been able to take, again, at this point in time, 8 different businesses and agencies to 7 and 8 figures. We teach that in Setterlun University. So click below to learn again everything. We pull back the curtain. It's only $47 a month as an introduction to get in there. We do have a free version as well if you wanna kind of go and see like, you know, what do, what do you got going on in there? And then again, if you are interested in one-on-one coaching, we absolutely have that below. And that is something that does start at $497 a month. That is something we do have below if you wanna apply for one-on-one coaching and mentorship with me and my teams. Thanks so much for watching. I'll see you inside Setterlun University.